


Hungry Grass

by NohrianxScum



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Exactly What It Says on the Tin, Fluff, Little a fluff as a treat, M/M, Pre-Relationship, autocannibalism, meat - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:27:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22866313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NohrianxScum/pseuds/NohrianxScum
Summary: Statement of Robert Warlow regarding his encounter with hungry grass. Original statement given 7th October, 1999. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.Jon is not himself when he's hungry. Martin to the rescue.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 9
Kudos: 46





	Hungry Grass

Statement of Robert Warlow regarding his encounter with hungry grass. Original statement given 7th October, 1999. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.

Statement begins.

I brought some snacks, hope you don’t mind.

I don’t like how sanitised fairy tales are these days. I don’t mean I miss all those ‘original’ edgy versions that float around the internet, I mean… what I mean is that fairy tales, at their core, are about survival. Stories are important.

That being said, I never liked great-grandma’s stories much. She survived a lot and all it gave her was the firm conviction that I would not. I could tell be the way she looked at me sometimes, by the impatient tapping of her fingers on the armrest of her sofa. As a child, I was both disgusted and fascinated by that gesture. She didn’t have two fingers on her left hand, though nobody could explain how that came to be.

But that is not… I’m here with my own story. I’m alive. I know what I’m made of.

What we all are made of.

  
  


It was all very cliché – a twenty-something on a journey of self-discovery, tracking down their roots all the way back in Ireland. Doesn’t matter where exactly. You’d be hard pressed to find that village on the map and even if you did, what good would it do?

I felt I had a lot to figure out, having just broken up with my partner. I’d like to say we grew apart but the truth is that we weren’t supposed to start dating in the first place. That’s the thing about being gay in a small town – you take what you can get. If you only know one other gay person, you might just mistake it for fate.

I arrived, expecting some… I don’t know. A sense of belonging? It was the place where generations of my family had lived and died, so I thought I should feel something. It was the polite thing, you know? To feel some kind of a connection. I tried.

It’s important you understand the context. At least to me it is.

  
  


The village was a colossal disappointment. Well, I don’t think it qualified as a village. Just a couple of houses, a post office that was closed more often than not, an inn with sticky linoleum floor and the omnipresent feeling of resignation that clung to everything like grime. It would be almost quaint, if it wasn’t so depressing.

So, that was where my family came from. Kind of shocked it took them so long to leave.

My great-grandmother used to tell me stories about that place, but now I doubt she actually remembered it. She _couldn’t_ have remembered it. The family left before she was six, but there was nobody alive left to contradict her by the time my parents had me. It took me a long time to realise, and even longer to accept that. I don’t even know how many of her stories were real ever since I found some of them printed, word-for-word, in a stack of _The Girl’s Own Paper_ haphazardly bound together.

I didn’t know what made her do it. Now I think that you have to invent yourself a little history, just to qualify as a human being.

Either way, I was stuck there with nothing to do, and a week to kill. I took to long walks, because being bored while walking beats being bored while sitting and staring at the ceiling, though not by much. I’d wander around the area, armed with a cheap leaflet I picked up at the inn. It described the local places of interests (none), the important people born there (none), and local legends (no doubt, copied word-from-word from the lore of a more interesting village). Fae. Black dogs. Banshees. The works.

It was the last day of my stay and I couldn’t even pretend I wasn’t relieved. I wandered off, farther away than before, anxious to escape the stifling atmosphere of the place until it was time to hop on the only bus that passed by.

It might be the hindsight speaking, but I felt as if something was propelling me to walk faster. I followed the dirt path into the woods until it was no more than a suggestion of footsteps in the grass.

Not sure what tipped me off. The quiet, most likely. I stopped, dazed, in the middle of a small clearing. A cheerless place lit by unsympathetic sun. Silence. The humming of blood in my ears sounded obscenely loud. The grass I was standing on was different. Pale, dry, like strips of peeling skin. Have you ever heard of hungry grass? It’s a patch of cursed land, a remnant of the Irish Famine. Whoever steps on it might just fall where they stand. Starve to death in the matter of minutes. I always thought it was only a piece of folklore, but standing there, in the bone-white light, something came over me. A gnawing feeling of wrongness. A gnawing feeling of emptiness. Gnawing…

hunger.

The world around me started swaying. No, that’s not quite true. It was my body.

There was safety. There was safety just behind me, all I had to do was to turn around, leave that patch of grass, go back to the inn, grab my luggage, get on the bus, go home and never think of the ashen grass again.

Too many steps to take.

I stayed still. A part of me knew that all I had to do was to make a step back, and I’d be fine, but it seemed so… so horribly unlikely in that moment.

I’d think of something, weren’t I so hungry.

I stepped forward.

My body turned hollow and brittle. An egg in a nest that no longer requires warmth. A shell, a touch away from shattering into fine dust.

Something forced another step out of me.

I stood in the centre of the clearing. Someone was crying. Must’ve been me. Hot tears streamed down my cheeks and I couldn’t raise my hand to wipe them away. My knees gave out.

The fall felt a lot like relief. Racked with violent convulsions, I closed my eyes and rested my forehead against the lifeless earth. The grass slashed at my skin.

The memory of that sensation keeps me awake, even after all this time. How hard the grass. How soft the soil.

It wasn’t any kind of reasoning, it was despair that made me grab a fistful of the soil – grass, rocks, bacteria – and shove it into my mouth. I stuffed my mouth full of it, choking as it went down, clumping in my throat. There was a distinct crack and sudden taste of iron when my teeth hit a finger. My ring finger.

I don’t remember the flavour. I know it’s probably something generally considered unforgettable, but my memory fails me. I recall crawling through the grass, my mouth full of dirt. I thought I’d die there. I was a couple of fingers down, but I found some pleasure in that. Sorry, that sounds so wrong. But I thought to myself that at least there would be something of me the grass couldn’t devour when I inevitably keeled over.

It’s not much of a difference, I know.

Obviously, I made it out. I think. Some days, I’m not so sure.

The hunger vanished, leaving only pain behind. Half-senseless, I staggered out of the woods and collapsed at the doorstep of the inn. You can imagine what happened after that. I guess it’s not really relevant to you at the institute.

Sorry about your pen, ma’am.

I guess I got hungry.

Statement ends.

* * *

  
  


Sighing, Jon leaned back in his chair, running his hand through his hair. Well, that was a perfect waste of time. Nobody seemed to conduct any follow-up investigation when the statement was fresh and he doubted doing so now would yield significant results, even if he had at least a single half-competent assistant at his disposal. That is to say, Tim and Sasha were busy with other tasks and he wasn’t desperate enough to ask Martin.

The door opened with a creak and Martin poked his head into the office. Great. He could be summoned telepathically. Just what Jon needed.

Contrary to the popular belief, he didn’t _hate_ Martin. The man frustrated him sometimes, sure, but if he were to be honest, Martin simply made him feel like an arsehole. But he decided not to be honest, because he was not ready to open that particular can of worms yet. Jon winced. That particular can of butterflies. Better.

Every time he acted somewhat prickly towards Martin – which didn’t make Martin Blackwood in any way special, Jon had always been like that – he felt guilty about it, as if he’d kicked a puppy. That made him feel awful about himself. And that made him act even more like an idiot. And so on, and so on.

Basically, Martin was horribly nice, Jon was not. It complicated workplace relationships, Jon hated it, and blaming Martin saved time.

“Jon, do you want… are you biting your nails?”

Jon removed his fingers from his mouth. “Of course, I’m not, that’s gross. What do you want?”

Martin looked so concerned he had to turn his face away. He licked his lips and his eyes widened slightly when he tasted blood.

“You’re bleeding.”

“I noticed,” Jon snapped.

There was faint rustling and mumbled apologies coming from behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Martin rummaging through his pockets. He gave Jon a victorious smile as if Jon had the foggiest idea about what he was trying to achieve there.

“I knew I had one on me!” With that, he handed the head archivist a Snickers bar. He accepted the treat, a little confused. A little grateful. A little annoyed that despite everything, Martin was so caring.

It confused him. It annoyed him. These two things were one and the same for Jon.

He slipped the chocolate bar into his pocket, got up from his chair and started searching for a jacket he didn’t bring in the morning.

“Let’s get lunch,” he grumbled. “My treat.”

He didn’t look at Martin, but he could hear the smile in his voice. “It’s not even ten.”

“It’s fine, I didn’t sleep tonight.”

Martin gasped, but it was clear he was trying not to laugh. “Jon!”

“I’m going with or without you.”

Silence. Jon looked at his assistant, and his gaze softened.

The door closed behind them and the tape recorder turned itself off with a satisfied click.

  
  



End file.
